


The Spectre Which Had Haunted My Midnight Pillow

by Tht0neGal666



Series: Haunt The Lonely [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, ESPer!Sakura, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Ghosts, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hurt/Comfort, Kakashi understands Sakura less every day, Nightmares, POV Haruno Sakura, Sakura sees ghosts, Secrets, Worldbuilding, but it's...not always a good thing...., but mostly Kakahsi, cannon character death, ex-anbu captain kakashi, ghosts literally follow team 7 everywhere, jonnin sensei kakashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tht0neGal666/pseuds/Tht0neGal666
Summary: "It's really not a big deal.""Oh?" He asks mildly, raising a single eyebrow and pouring a cup of something without looking. "It seemed like a bit of a big deal, when you almost bit my finger off."
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi
Series: Haunt The Lonely [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1355656
Comments: 19
Kudos: 451





	The Spectre Which Had Haunted My Midnight Pillow

**Author's Note:**

> Ok. So my Naruto brain is taking a back seat to my newfound BNHA brain, but I have a few Naruto things still prewritten! Specters are actually a part of this that I've been trying to figure out how to introduce for a hot minute; it was either this or that time Sakura met Danzo as a kid, but I don't like writing Danzo so I still haven't finished that one, so I went with this one.

The thing about specters was that they weren't ghosts. Not really.

Sure, they used to be, she was pretty sure. Once upon a time, they had a clear goal, a dream, something that anchored them to this plane of existence. A purpose. _Unfinished Business._ That was how all Ghosts started.

The difference, though, as far as she could figure out, was that specters had hung around too long. Their goals become impossible, or they get distracted and forget it, or they're driven mad by loneliness, or they just get lost and can't find their way back to the pure lands. Sakura didn't really know- it's not like she could ask them, afterall. 

Specters are mindless, vengeful spirits. They don't have as much of a presence as Ghosts, can't interact with the world as much. They just moan and scream and demand. They rake their hands along whoever they hate enough to stubbornly anchor themselves too- usually their killer- and hiss and shout. Sometimes the living guilty party feels a pit of dread or a shiver of guilt, and that fuels the specters. Renews their vigor, getting a reaction out of someone- _anyone_ \- and they stick around.

When she was younger, Specters haunted her every night. She couldn't control her Sight at all, it would turn on and off without her even noticing, and she couldn't tell the living from the dead from the specters.

She made the mistake of talking to specters. Asking if they were okay. Wanting nothing more then to help-

And they haunted her. The ones that were more far gone would moan and scream and snarl at her, trying to get a reaction from her, as desperate to be seen at all as she was to _never see them again_. 

The ones that she had to presume weren't that far gone were worse, though. They would _whisper_. Tell her horrible things, tell her to do horrible things, tell her to do horrible things to do the people she cared about.

Eventually, thankfully, she learned to control her sight. She couldn't see specters unless she was looking for them, and Inner got strong enough to scare them away from her anyway.

Sakura was older now, though. Old enough to not get scared by stupid ghosts or specters that couldn't touch her. Even if they wanted too, specters couldn't hurt her. Technically ghosts could, but no one had ever really bothered- too scared of falling out of her favor, or Inner, or Rin-nee, or any of the other powerful dead shinobi that adored her.

But, still, sometimes guilt and fear ate at her, and she couldn't hear anything but wails and whispers. Sometimes she woke up and was too panicked to control her Sight, and the wails and whispers followed her into the waking world until Inner or Rin-nee scared them off. 

She had always been able to take solace in the fact that, at least, they couldn't touch her. It was horrible, it was terryfying- but she was _safe_.

And then she woke up screaming, and something grabbed her wrist and put a hand over her mouth, and she found that, somehow, it was entirely possible to be even more scared then she usually was.

"No! Damn it, no!" She tried to scream, thrashing and rolling and trying to get up. Get _away_. She couldn't scream because of the hand, though, so she bucked her head to slide it down, just a little, and _bit down hard_.

For a frenzied millisecond, she wondered if specters could bleed blood. Then she tasted iron, and the hand jerked away, and she screamed again-

"Let me go! Get off, assholes! Leave me _alone!_ " She demanded, and Inner burst out to fight the specters off, and _where is Rin-nee?_

Miraculously, somehow, the demand worked. The hand spasmed in surprise and she heard whoever it was- or, well, used to be- scurry back, and she basked in the sound of Inner kicking Specter butt as she tried to focus on her breathing more then the whispers and wails.

"Sakura?" She heard a voice call, eventually, and she _froze_.

The voice didn't sound like a specter. Even when specters could speak, they sounded...inhumane. She didn't know quite how to describe it. Echoey and distorted and wispy and _dead_. 

"Sakura." The voice repeats, firmer in it's whisper, and she heaves a sigh of relief as she realizes it isn't a specter, because specters _couldn't grab her_ , and that still held true. She was still _safe_.

With that reassuring thought she took a grounding breathe, opened her eyes, and flinched as her Sight was flooded with specters again- unable to harm her, yes, but still _there_ , when she was a bit too worked up to not see them, and too numerous for even Inner to banish them all in a timely manner.

"Mm?" She hummed, shakily, because the voice was still distinctly _alive_ , which meant she still had to respond to it but she, for the life of her, couldn't open her damn mouth. She still tasted blood.

"Are you alright? I came to wake you for your shift on guard, and you were having a nightmare." The voice continued, and Sakura was finally aware enough to place it.

Kakashi-nii.

"Y-yeah just. just go awa-way and give. give me a m-min-minute." She requested, fumbling over her words but stubbornly pushing them all out because it would be _much_ easier to calm down if him and his countless victims would be so kind as to give her space to _breathe_. 

She knew she was the only one that felt it, but she still shivered. The air was always _colder_ among the dead.

Her eyes were still closed, so she didn't see him leave, and he was too great a shinobi for her to hear it. But she knew the second he was gone anyway, as the deadly-still air flowed as usual.

It didn't take her more then a handful of minutes to wake up and calm down enough to pull back her Sight until she couldn't see _any_ ghosts, her eyes a rare dull green. 

"Are you alright?" Kakashi-nii repeats in _exactly_ the same tone, somehow, as she exits the tent to sit besides him at the fire. Now that she's paying attention she notices that, curiously, the question isn't half as awkward or stilted as she would expect from her emotionally stunted sensei with the social-skills of a moldy grape. She supposed that being a Shinobi- an _ANBU,_ no less- for so long made nightmares and tramua the closest thing to small-talk her sensei was comfortable with.

"Totally." She assures easily enough. She really wouldn't have freaked out much if he hadn't _touched her_ , if there hadn't been that split second where maybe-specters-were-actually-dangerous. "It's really not a big deal."

"Oh?" He asks mildly, raising a single eyebrow and pouring a cup of _something_ without looking. "It seemed like a bit of a big deal, when you almost bit my finger off." 

"Sorry, sensei." She winced, eyeing the cleanly bandaged wound. Oops. "But really, it's fine. You just- startled me, is all."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" He prodded, handing her the cup of tea, apparently, and she took it with a grateful hum. 

"Not really." She decided without much thought, blowing on the beverage. "Just. Maybe don't touch me when I'm having a nightmare? That really freaked me out more then anything." She informed him, not looking him in the eye as she did. She couldn't tell if she was embarrassed or scared or what, but she could tell that the coffee was _peppermint_ , which was neat. 

"Hm." He nods in agreement, and clearly debates whether to push the topic more or not. "Why's that?" He asked, and she glared a little. He pretended not to notice, even though she _knew_ he was watching her every move right now. Body language was 80% of communication, and any competent Shinobi kept a keen eye on their subject of interrogation.

(Not that Shisui needed to know she paid attention when he spouted off Shinobi advice. He talked enough as it was.)

"It...confused me, I guess." She admitted, because she didn't want to talk about this _later_ , and there wasn't much of a chance that he would just drop it. She took a suspiciously long sip of coffee, blatantly stalling for time. He was always digging at her for intel- probably trying to figure out why the supposedly-milk-toast Civilian girl is the way she is. Not that he'd ever figure it out- there was a long jump from 'possibly neurotic and kinda weird' to 'ESPer'. "They aren't supposed to- I can usually calm down faster because I know the nightmare isn't real and can't _really_ harm me? So touch freaked me out, because it made me doubt that." She settled on, studying him just as blatantly as he pretended he wasn't studying her and hoping _really really hard_ that it was enough to satisfy his curiosity.

"Maaa, my bad Sakura-chan." He _finally_ shrugged, sipping the tea _through_ his mask. She wondered if he ever burned himself, doing that. Maybe that's why he wore the mask. "I'll be more careful in the future. The three of you sure are a handful, ya know?" He whined, and she rolled her eyes, wishing not for the first time that Rin-nee would leave the village on missions with her. 

"We're _you're_ handful, Sensei. It's about time you get used to it- we aren't going anywhere." She said pointedly, and kindly pretended that he didn't flinch. Maybe it was a low-blow, but she didn't want to talk about herself anymore, and it was a _very_ effective way to shut the man up. "It's my watch shift, right? Go get some sleep old man." She urged.

He hesitated, clearly still wanting to talk about _something_ , and she blinked innocently at him, as if what she said hadn't been a purpousful claim to a better future. "What's wrong, sensei?" She asked blithly, both to cover her own tracks and to be an ass because she was petty and he made her think Specters were real for a terryfying minute, "You look like you've seen a ghost. Are....you alright?" She asked, frowning in mock concern, and he blinked hard as he snapped back to reality.

Definitely a low blow, she decided, but it worked every time. Thank sage she was such an experienced liar, by now.

"Don't worry about it Sakura-chan, I'm just tired." He waved, giving a half-hearted attempt at a convincing yawn as he stood up. "Good night."

"Night, sensei." She nodded, managing not to sound either smug or relieved- an achievement in itself. "Sleep well."

He gave an assurance that was even less convincing then his yawn, and she sighed and watched the night, turning her Sight back on. Specters were good for one thing, she guessed- they worked _great_ as a shinobi detection system. And, to her releif, there weren't any to be seen (not even around Kakashi- Inner was _efficient_ ). She settled in for a long, boring night, and tried to convince herself that her faint shivers and shakes were from the cold and not the terrified adrenaline.


End file.
